Max: The Seven-Year-Old Expert Who Never Caught a Pokémon

He knows Pokémon by heart and doesn't own a single one. Max is seven when he tags along on the journey of his sister May, Ash and Brock, through Hoenn and then Kanto. Too young to be a Trainer, he fills a role the group had never had before: the resident researcher, who knows everything and has experienced nothing.

Contents

• A Meeting in Front of a TV Set
• The Group's Know-It-All, and the Limits of Book Learning
• A Trainer Without Pokémon: A Life of Borrowing
• After the Journey: Petalburg City, Then the Screen
• Max at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Meeting in Front of a TV Set

His first appearance plays out as a domestic scene. Max is watching a rerun of the Silver Conference matches when raised voices come from the family Gym: a Trainer has come to challenge the Gym Leader, who happens to be his father.

The boy recognizes the visitor and doesn't hide it — he tells him he lost his matches because he didn't think hard enough. He then passes himself off as the Gym Leader and announces a three-on-three battle, even though Ash is traveling with only Pikachu at that point.

The arrival of his sister May ends the charade and reveals the family connection. When the group sets off again, Max asks to come along and his sister agrees: the youngest child of Norman hits the road before he's even old enough to be a Trainer.

The Group's Know-It-All, and the Limits of Book Learning

Max believes what's written in books, and the journey takes care of showing him that not everything is in there. That's what drives his character: a child who read before he saw, and who has to revise his notes at every stop.

His curiosity quickly reaches beyond battling. He serves as Janet's assistant during the Rustboro City Pokémon Contest and takes the job as seriously as an adult would, discovering firsthand a discipline he had only known in theory.

The first Gym match he watches, Ash's against Roxanne, is also the first of his life: his father never let him watch his own. His pride in his father even finds a memorable outlet — the day Norman loses to Ash, Max snatches the Badge and runs off to cry on his own.

The rest of his role is comic, and the character owns it. He acts as a servant to May's Munchlax whenever it gets hungry, inherits the habit of pulling the ear of the companion who falls for every young woman he meets, and is genuinely put out to run into a boy who shares his name and looks like him.

A Trainer Without Pokémon: A Life of Borrowing

Max doesn't catch a single Pokémon during the entire journey. His relationship with Pokémon runs through only two channels, friendship and loans: Ash and May lend him theirs when a situation calls for a partner, which makes his rare battles stand out as exceptions.

The first one takes place at the Rustboro City Trainers' School, against a classmate named Tommy, with a Poliwag that doesn't belong to him. Team Rocket bursts in and interrupts a match he would in all likelihood have lost.

The loans that follow serve the same practical purpose: Ash's Corphish to beat Vivi, the youngest of the Winstrate family, then his sister's Munchlax for an orienteering race that takes the form of a treasure hunt. He's also among the participants in the Trick House.

What remains are the bonds that can't be counted in catches. Max promises a Ralts that he'll come back for it and be its Trainer once he's grown up, and he makes two friends among the Mythical Pokémon: Deoxys and Jirachi.

🧸 Cute Pokémon are his favorite category: see the section dedicated to Pokémon plushies.

After the Journey: Petalburg City, Then the Screen

For him, the journey ends after seasons 6 to 9. May takes him back to Petalburg City, where he looks after the Gym's Pokémon and the ones his sister left there — a concrete responsibility, in lieu of a team of his own.

After that, his reappearances can be counted on one hand. He and May appear in a Japanese opening of the twelfth season, then in an ending of the sixteenth, which marks their first appearance in the Black & White series, before one last appearance in Ash's thoughts at the very end of that same series.

Much later, in an episode of the Journeys series, Max watches the final of the Masters Eight Tournament on TV, alongside Lisia, while Ash is battling in it. The loop closes neatly: he enters the series in front of a screen showing a tournament, and he leaves it the same way.

He's the only member of Ash's group who was never reunited with him after leaving. The match Ash promised him for when he was older is left hanging, just like the promise made to Ralts — two appointments the series never kept.

Max at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Max in the Pokémon anime?
  He's May's little brother and the son of Norman, the Petalburg City Gym Leader. Seven years old, he travels with Ash, his sister and Brock through Hoenn and then Kanto, during seasons 6 to 9.
• Does Max have any Pokémon of his own?
  No, he doesn't catch any. He borrows Ash's and May's when the situation calls for it — the Poliwag from his first battle, Corphish, Munchlax — and befriends several others, including Deoxys and Jirachi.
• Why doesn't Max become a Trainer?
  Because he's too young. At seven, he isn't old enough to set out with his own team, and he makes up for it with an encyclopedic knowledge of species that makes him the group's go-to reference.
• What's the connection between Max and Ralts?
  He meets a Ralts during the journey and promises to come back for it and become its Trainer when he's older. It's the strongest bond he forms with a Pokémon.
• What happens to Max after he leaves Ash's group?
  May takes him back to Petalburg City, where he looks after the Gym's Pokémon and the ones his sister left there. He never sees Ash again, which makes him the only companion in that situation.

In short

Max is a balancing piece rather than a hero: he brings the group the theory no one else had taken the time to learn, and the journey gives him the experience his books didn't contain. His story ends neither with a catch nor with a title, but with two promises left open — the one made to a Ralts, and the match Ash owed him. The only companion the series never brought back to his friend.